


Little League of Miracles

by aintitnifty



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Kid Fic, Semi-Crack FIc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-21
Updated: 2013-09-21
Packaged: 2017-12-27 04:54:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,511
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/974574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aintitnifty/pseuds/aintitnifty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Kagami coaches little league basketball, and his team is made up of miracles. (AU, Wee!Generation of Miracles)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Little League of Miracles

**Author's Note:**

> Guys. I did a thing. Lord help me now that I've officially started writing fic for this fandom.
> 
> Hooo boy.
> 
> Enjoy!

As soon as he heard the thud, followed immediately by stunned silence and then a wailing, tremulous cry, Kagami Taiga knew it was going to be one of _those_ days.

Little Kise—the source of said wailing—was sprawled on his back on the floor, one hand pressed firmly over his nose and mouth, his eyes spilling over with tears. Across from him stood Akashi, stone-faced as usual, staring in turns at Kise, and then Kagami.

Kagami closed his eyes and heaved a sigh, muttering, “Every damn time,” then walked over to crouch beside Kise.

“Okay, kiddo. Let me see,” he said, putting a gentle hand on Kise’s head. Kise whimpered a little, eyes shining, but he moved his hand slowly away from his face, revealing a reddened nose and mouth, but thankfully no blood. He was missing one of his front teeth, but luckily it was the one he had lost two days prior; Kagami had seen him parading around showing off the gap.

Kagami smiled down at Kise, patting his shoulder.

“Doesn’t look too bad, but let’s get you some ice for that. Can you stand?” Kise nodded and held up his arms, and Kagami tugged him easily to his feet. Only then did he rise and turn to frown at Akashi, who was still watching them with an expressionless gaze. Kise clung to Kagami’s right hand, squeezing his fingers tightly and half-hiding behind Kagami’s legs.

“Akashi,” Kagami said. “What did I say about passing the ball too hard?”

Akashi kicked absently at the ground. “It wouldn’t have been a problem if he’d just caught it.”

“Akashi,” Kagami warned, and the boy let out a little sigh and averted his eyes.

“Don’t pass the ball too hard because that’s how people get hurt,” he mumbled.

“And now do you see why we have that rule?”

Another mumble. “Yes.”

“So what do you say to Kise?”

Akashi took a moment to glare at Kagami, his eyes flashing, but then he looked up at the ceiling and muttered, “Sorry, Kise-kun.”

Kagami jiggled Kise’s hand a little to get him to reply, and Kise uttered a timid, “S’okay.”

“Akashi, why don’t you go practice with Aomine for a while?” Kagami had a suspicion Akashi’s particular brand of… _intensity_ would be better matched with Aomine than it had been with Kise. At the very least the scrappy Aomine would have a better chance of defending himself.

“All right,” Akashi said, and headed for the other side of the gym.

Kagami looked down at Kise, who was staring up at him with wide, wet eyes, one hand still covering his nose and mouth. Kagami smiled.

“Ready for that ice?”

*

A little while later Kagami was interrupted from a phone call with the hysterical mother of one Satsuki Momoi (who had—yet again—followed her neighbor Aomine to his basketball practice when she was _supposed_ to be at a piano lesson, and was now chatting with the still-resting Kise, who was apparently so charmed by her that he neglected to notice the ice melting down his face and onto his shirt) by a sharp tug on the hem of his shorts and a piping, curt voice saying, “Kagami-san.”

Kagami glanced down to see Midorima staring grimly up at him. He was clutching a stuffed white whale to his chest, no doubt his lucky item of the day.

“I’m sorry, can you please excuse me for a moment?” Kagami said into the phone, and covered up the mouthpiece as Momoi’s mother began to shriek. “What’s wrong, Midorima?”

“Aomine is trying to dunk again.”

Kagami went pale. “Oh god. Is he—?”

“Yes.”

Kagami sighed and dragged a hand over his face, then said into the phone, “I’m so sorry, ma’am, but I really have to go. It’s an emergency.” He slapped the phone shut on her ranting and started running for the other side of the gym. Stacked haphazardly beneath the basket were an overturned ball bin, a cardboard box labeled _EXTRA SHOES_ , and one rusty folding chair. Aomine was currently dragging another folding chair—almost as tall as he was—over to the precarious stack.

“Aomine!” Kagami shouted, and Aomine jumped, dropping the chair with a clatter. It landed on his foot and he hopped away from it, hissing a word that—for the moment—Kagami was going to pretend he didn’t hear. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“I can’t reach the basket,” Aomine said, as though it were the most obvious fact in the world. He was standing on one foot, the better to rub his bruised toes.

“Of course you can’t,” Kagami said. “You’re eight. You’re not _supposed_ to be able to reach the basket.”

Aomine scowled. “But I wanna dunk.”

“So you were going to climb _that_?” Kagami said, pointing at the swaying tower of junk.

“I’ve done it before,” said Aomine with a shrug.

“I know you have,” Kagami said. “And do you remember what happened the last time you tried?”

Aomine’s gaze flickered down to his left wrist, the one that had been broken in that particular tumble.

“Look,” Kagami said, taking a knee so he could clap a hand to Aomine’s shoulder and better meet his eye. “I know it’s frustrating to see the basketball players in high school and college and on TV doing all of these amazing things, but you’re young yet. You have time. You’ll get to that level.”

Aomine clenched his fists, scowling down at the floor. “I will get there.”

Kagami squeezed his shoulder. “But for now, I’m going to have to ask you to leave the dunking to the big kids, okay? Can you do that for me?”

Aomine made a face, eyeing Kagami suspiciously. “Can I still dunk on the hoops I can reach?”

“I’d expect nothing less.”

“Good.” Aomine broke into a blinding grin and ducked under Kagami’s arm, heading for Midorima, who was standing a little ways apart from them near one of the junior hoops they’d set up for practice. “Oy, glasses-face!” Aomine hollered, grabbing up a ball mid-stride and dribbling to the hoop. “Wanna practice dunks with me?”

Midorima sniffed. “I don’t dunk.”

“Fine, then you can watch me.”

“The last time I watched you, you ended up kicking me in the face and breaking my lucky key-chain.”

“Yeah, but this time you have a stuffed whale,” Aomine said, his grin turning sharp. “I can’t break something that’s stuffed, can I?”

Midorima clutched the whale tightly to his chest.

*

Just before the end of practice, Murasakibara tripped on his untied shoelace and toppled to the floor with a resounding _crunch_. Kagami panicked for a moment as visions of shattered clavicles and broken fibias flashed through his mind, but then he heard Muraskibara whisper a quiet, “Darn it,” and produce a crushed bag of chips from god only knew where.

Kagami rolled his eyes to the heavens. “Murasakibara, you know we’re not supposed to have food in the gym.”

“I get hungry.”

Kagami sighed. “Look, just. Put it away for now, okay? You can eat in ten minutes when practice is over.”

Murasakibara stared blankly at him for a moment, then stowed the chips once more.

The last few minutes of practice were devoted to clean-up, so Kagami had Aomine and Akashi chase down stray balls while Midorima and Murasakibara rolled the junior practice hoops into the closet. Kise and Momoi (Kagami figured he might as well put her to use, as long as she was there) started folding up chairs.

Kagami absently counted the little heads as they worked, and then paused when he came up with six. That made sense, of course, because Momoi was here, but Kagami could have sworn they were missing someone…

“Kagami-san.”

Kagami almost jumped out of his skin at that soft voice. It came from right beside him, even though he was positive no one had been there a second ago.

“Kuroko,” he breathed, trying to calm his racing heart as he looked down to meet the bright blue gaze of his seventh— _yes, seven, there had been seven of them all day, how did he forget that?_ —student. “What’s up?”

“My parents can’t pick me up from practice today, so they told me to ask if you can bring me home again.” Kuroko held out a folded piece of paper, never breaking eye contact. “I have a note.”

Kagami took the paper, but he didn’t even both unfolding it; he already knew what it would say. In thin, precise script, Kuroko’s mother would explain her and her husband’s busy schedules, give their apologies for inconveniencing Kagami, and hope that Kuroko was performing admirably for the team. Kagami had received at least thirty similar notes over the past few months; at this point he was surprised that Kuroko even still had to ask.

But then again… it was Kuroko. Of course he would ask.

“Not a problem, kiddo,” Kagami said, reaching out to ruffle Kuroko’s hair. “Why don’t you go pack up your things? We’ll leave after I lock up.”

Kuroko raced off to grab his bag, his hair now standing up at odd angles.

It was at this point that parents started arriving to cart off their children. Momoi’s mother came up to Kagami to personally apologize for her daughter’s intrusion on their practice. Said daughter scowled at her shoes during her mother’s rambling apology, scuffing her toe against the hardwood floor.

“Really,” Kagami interrupted the mother for the fourth time, holding his hands up, “she was no trouble at all. She was pretty helpful, actually, so if she’d like to come to more practices, she’d be more than welcome.”

Momoi’s mother balked. “W-what?”

But Momoi’s entire face lit up, her eyes sparkling, her mouth falling open into a little ‘o’.

“You mean it?” she asked.

“Sure.” Kagami put on a mock-stern face. “But only if you’re as helpful as you were today. Deal?”

“Deal!” Momoi chirped, then broke away from her mother and ran off to tell Aomine, who was just heading out the door with one arm slung over Kise’s shoulders.

Akashi was the last to be picked up that day, leaving Kagami alone with little Kuroko. It was strangely quiet in the gym without Aomine’s constant yelling and Midorima’s constant scolding and Kise’s constant giggles, but Kagami relished the peace while it lasted. Kuroko watched from the doorway as Kagami walked around checking that all of the doors were locked, and then he hit the lights, casting the gymnasium into an evening gloom.

“You ready?” Kagami asked when he joined Kuroko in the doorway, and Kuroko nodded.

The whole school was shut down for the night, so the hallways were dark, too, lit only by one overhead light out of every four. Kagami felt Kuroko startle slightly when the gym door closed behind them, and then a small, warm hand wormed its way into his.

“It’s dark,” Kuroko said by way of explanation, and that was that.

Kagami let Kuroko sit in the front seat on the way home, mostly because the back seat was full of gym bags and old clothes and other detritus, but also because he liked to see the kid’s face light up when he was told he’d be allowed to “co-pilot” their way home. Kagami had an old phonebook stowed beneath the passenger seat for just such an occasion (it had been there ever since the first time Kuroko had asked to be driven home) and Kuroko settled onto it with the air of a king.

“You’re sure you don’t want to stop for a burger?” Kagami asked as they pulled onto the main street. “I know your parents won’t be home until late.”

Kuroko shook his head, his eyes never leaving the road. “No, thank you. There are leftovers in the fridge. I’ll be fine.”

Kagami made a face, but he knew better than to belabor the point. He hated the idea of Kuroko staying alone in that big empty house, but the boy was used to it, and had blatantly told him so. All he needed was the ride home. Everything else he’d figured out how to do on his own a long time ago.

“Kagami-san?”

“Hm?”

“Will you play with us tomorrow at practice?” Kuroko looked over at him, blue eyes bright and very wide. “We like to watch you play.”

Kagami laughed. “You mean you like to try and beat me.”

“Oh. Well.” Kuroko looked down at his hands, folded neatly in his lap. “That may be true of Akashi, and definitely Aomine. Probably Midorima, too, but…” He looked up at Kagami again, this time with a little smile. “I like to watch you play.”

Kagami felt his smirk slowly melt into a smile. “All right, kiddo. I’ll play.”

They pulled up to Kuroko’s house a few minutes later. Kagami glared up at the dark, hulking house, his left leg bouncing nervously.

“You’re _sure_ you’ll be okay alone?” he asked.

“I’m sure.” And then Kuroko did something he’d never done before: He clambered over the center console and twined his small arms around Kagami’s neck in an awkward semblance of a hug. Kagami blinked, automatically bringing a hand up to Kuroko’s back.

“Um…” he began, but Kuroko just squeezed harder and buried his face in Kagami’s shoulder.

“Thank you for driving me home, Kagami-san,” he said.

“You’re… welcome?” He absently patted Kuroko’s hair, wondering with some panic whether or not the boy was going to start crying. “Uh. What’s this all about?”

“I’m showing my appreciation for you through physical contact,” Kuroko said, mostly into his shirt.

“Right, but—”

Kuroko pulled away and patted Kagami on the head, effectively shutting him up.

“I’ll see you tomorrow, Kagami-san,” he said, and then he reached down, grabbed his bag from between his feet, and got out of the car. Kagami watched him jog up the walk to his house, still feeling rather stunned. Kuroko rarely touched people. Even with the other boys on the team, it was always Aomine slinging an arm around Kuroko’s shoulders or initiating a fist-bump, or Kise offering up a high-five, or Murasakibara patting Kuroko’s head—it was never the other way around.

Kuroko turned and waved as soon as he got the front door unlocked—their sign that Kagami was free to go—and Kagami waved back. He waited until Kuroko was inside and the door was closed behind him before he left, though, as was his habit.

The drive home was quiet. No music, no radio, no phone calls. Just… quiet.

The majority of which was spent planning out the next day’s practice, complete with warm-ups and workouts and—most importantly—who would be on whose team when Kagami joined the boys in their game.

It was funny, Kagami thought as he pulled up to his apartment complex, that even in his moments of peace, his mind was still filled with the dribble of basketballs and the clamoring of young voices, echoing in a brightly lit gym.

_Oh well_ , he decided. _Life could be worse._


End file.
